What happened
Durable satellite broadcasting company Dish Network (DISH) had a fine day on the stock market Thursday. After reporting its latest set of quarterly results, the bulls rushed in, pushing the share price more than 5% higher.
So what
For its fourth quarter of 2022, Dish Network brought in $4.04 billion in revenue, a drop from the $4.45 billion it earned in the same quarter of 2021. That figure also failed to meet analyst estimates, which on average called for $4.15 billion.
The story was dramatically different on the bottom line. Dish Network netted a profit of $936 million, far higher than the $552 million of the year-ago quarter. On a per-share basis, the former equates to $1.47, nearly three times the $0.51 collective estimate from those prognosticators.
In terms of customer metrics, Dish Network ended 2022 with 9.75 million TV subscribers to its two brands, Dish TV and Sling TV. That broke down into 7.42 million for Dish TV, and 2.33 million for Sling TV. All told during the quarter, the total number of pay TV subscribers declined by around 268,000; that was better than the roughly 273,000 defections in the fourth quarter of 2021.
Now what
In its earnings release, Dish Network did not proffer any guidance. By contrast, those analysts following the stock are all too eager to reveal their projections. For the current (first) quarter, they're collectively modeling revenue of $4.15 billion and per-share net income of $0.47. Both numbers are well lower than the company's first-quarter 2022 results, which came in respectively at $4.45 billion and $0.86.
